LEAD/\'G ARTICLES. 



609 



There was but one cause for the diminu- 

 tion of the birds, which was widespread, an- 

 nual, perennial, continuous, and enormously 

 destructive — their persecution by mankind. 



Every great nesting-ground known was be- 

 sieged by a host of people as soon as it was 

 discovered, many of them professional 

 pigeoners, armed with all the most effective 

 engines of slaughter known. Many times 

 the birds were so persecuted that they finally 

 left, their young to the mercies of the 

 pigeoners, and even when they remained 

 most of the young were killed and sent to the 

 market and the adults were decimated. The 

 average life of a pigeon in nature is possibly 

 not over five years. The destruction of most 

 of the yoving birds for a series of years would 

 bring about such a diminution of the species 

 as occurred soon after 1878. One egg was 

 the complement for each nest. Before the 

 country was settled, while the birds were un- 

 molested, except by Indians and other 

 natural enemies, they bred in large colonies. 

 This, in itself, was a means of protection, 

 and they probably doubled their numbers 

 every year by changing thedr nesting places 

 two or three times yearly, and rearing two 

 or three young birds to each pair. Later, 

 when all the resources of civilised man were 

 brouglit to bear against them, their very 

 gregariousness. which formerly protected 

 them, now insured their destruction: and 

 when at last they were driven to the far 

 North to breed, and scattered far and wide, 

 the death rate rapidly outran the birth rate. 



\\'};?:->ver tbey settled to roost or to nest, 

 \vir,ter or summer, spring or fall, they were 

 loilowed and destroyed until, unable to raise 

 young, they scattered over the country pur- 

 sued everywhere, forming targets for millions 

 of shotguns, with no hope of safety save in 

 the vast northern wilderness, where the 

 rigors of nature forbade them to procreate. 

 Thus they gradually succumbed to the in- 

 evitable and passed into the unknown. 

 Were it jiossible to obtain an accurate record 

 of the receipts of pigeon shipments in the 

 markets of the larger cities only from 1870 

 to 189.5. the enormous numbers sold and the 

 gradual decrease in the sales would exhibit, 

 in the mo.st graphic and convincing manner 

 possil)le. the chief cause of the passing of the 

 passenger pigeon. 



While we have been wondering why the 

 pigeor.s disappear, the markets have been 

 reaching out for something to take their 

 place, and we have witne.ssed also the rapid 

 disappearance of the Eskimo Curlew, the 

 I'pland Plover, the Bluff-breasted Sandpiper, 

 and the Golden I'lover, from the same cause. 

 Shall we awake in time to save any of these 

 birds, or the many others that are still men- 

 aced with extinction by this great market 

 demand? No hope can be held out for the 

 future of these birds until our markets are 

 elo.sed to the sale of native wild game. 



In iXuhtralia we ha\e no such birds to 

 protect, but the slaughter of the aigrette 

 which has taken place here is deplorable. 



CONSERVATION OF FUR SEALS. 



Russia, England, Japan and America 



have agreed to suspend sealing in the 



open sea for fifteen years and sealing on 



land for five years. The need for this 



close season is explained in the Nort/t 



Anierican Rcvieiv by George Archibald 



Clark: — 



Pelagic sealing i)roved very dcsiiuctive to 

 the herd. It resjx'cted neither sex nor con- 

 dition of the animals found, and tlie catch 

 Fell principally upon the gravid and luuvsing 

 females, the latter taken upon the suininei 

 feeding-grounds in Behring Sea : tor wiicn tiie 

 mio-ration route of th(> seals had been covered 

 th.? sealers entered Behniig Sea and lay in 

 wait for the mother seals as they visi Led the 

 tishing-banks one or two hundred miles di.s- 

 tant from the islands for the i)Urpo.s,- ot lecl- 

 nxLy As a result of the death ot tlie mother 

 the dependent young starved to deatn on ttie 

 rookeries. In the fall of 1896 sixteen thou- 



sand fur-seal pups died of starvation on the 

 rookeries of St. {'anl and St. (Jeorge Islands. 



WANTON SI,.\U(:HTKR. 



As pelagic sealing developed through the 

 increasing number of ships, its catch grew 

 from 80fM) at the beginning to a maximum of 

 140. (iOO in 1894: but this could not last, and 

 with the declining herd the pelagic catch also 

 began to decline. In the season of 1911, the 

 last of the industry, the catch numbered 

 about lo.OOO skins. From the known catch 

 of tlie sealing fleets and from conservative 

 estimates as to animals killed but not n^- 

 covered. it is aj^parent that more than a 

 million hrecnling fiMuale fur sisals and a like 

 number of unborn and dt pendent young wt>re 

 destroyed during the ihirty ikUI yeare ot 

 the pelagic industry has btvu in operation. 

 Tile result is the dejileted CHJiulition in which 

 wc tiiid the herd to-day. Our best, informa- 

 tion places the number of animals in the 

 herd at tlu' time we took it ov»'r from Russia 

 ill 1867 at betw<H'ii two and three millions. It 

 numheis to-day about- 21'),00t). 



